Monday, August 5, 2013

Trail of a Lonesome Gringo (VII: Lost and Found and Lost and…)

Dull days of isolation and interaction and inner
and outer and interior y exterior, so
on and forth and around and around.A
massive bike ride found me sweaty and in an artisan market, not before being
chased by an angry dog barking at my heels and I’m all like fuck, how am I going to go back past it?
Which turned out to be a more pertinent question than I’d imagined at first
because I overshot the turn-off to the market and the angry fucker was standing
on the road, waiting, watching, his territory now at peace until the next
wayward stranger swings by.And I failed
to think there and then and stopped a few metres down the road so he could
clearly still see me.So I ride as fast
as I can at the bastard, knowing I have little other choice and that he doesn’t
really look like he has rabies, or she for that matter, so shooting past I
cringe and pedal like a maniac, expecting the worst, but it just sits there,
watches me pass like I’m a moron and I fly way down the hill, wandering how
these situations work then.A crusty old
crumbly old road, fun riding, locals watch me as they do everywhere, strange
long-haired white dude (they’re light, but not quite as white as I compared to
the night); and finally I get to the market, like seven kilometres of
uphill-downhill riding, where I dump the bike and wonder round for all of half
an hour, but it was worth it because the ride was awesome and on the way back
I’ll see two little kids and have a little chat with them, very basic, because
my vocabulary and abilities in Spanish are still less than that of a
child…!At the market there are some
interesting folk and I attempt to play an African instrument with a nice
Chilean girl who owns the store and plays guitar; she says she is learning to
sing and when I go back inside the shop to check out other instruments I hear
her singing to herself and think wow, if she’s learning, then where am I
at?Beautiful sound, odd stabby rhythms
I’d love to be able to play.I buy some hierbas, pretty cheap and a lovely
smell, then wander aimlessly some more and finally hit the road again,
simultaneously dreading and looking forward to the ride (which turns out to be
far easier, mostly down-hill somehow, which I don’t get because it seemed
evenly up and down on the way here…).Previously, I’d had too much coffee with Rodrigo, getting carried away
reading some beautiful poems by Walt Whitman and chatting away about music and
literature.So I was wired when I left and
pretty much the whole time, heart beating rapidly, unhealthily fast; stomach turned
inside out with anxiety, it’s like coffee brings out the beast in me it’s that
god damn evident, but the riding is nonetheless enjoyable and I see locals
picking up other locals in little pickup trucks as if it’s no thing, wondering
why, back at home, I’d fear death asking a stranger in the outback for a
ride.Some John Jarat motherfucker
looking to do some serious physical and psychological damage.Shiet.But I feel safer seeing it, knowing that I’ll probably have to thumb a
ride to Cochiguaz because no public
transport exists to get there (I see now why everyone says the people there are
weird and isolated). I look forward to
that journey.So getting back and after
having decided a few more days here is a good idea, I drink beer and mourn my
dying confidence in the Spanish language, but then remember that it’s early
days and that I have a history of pessimism, like some weird criminal record
but associated with my attitude rather than the many crimes I’ve committed.Moving on then.Beer, walking; I have madeit a fairly regular thing to just walk around
town.I’m convinced that the people have
dubbed me ‘the gringo around town’, though I have no evidence for that at all,
save for the many pairs of eyes that gaze as I walk; but I think the idea is
funny anyway, so I continue imagining that that’s what I am to them.The old gringo around town.What is
that guy even doing here?On my
night-walks I also gawk at the stars for extended periods of time because…no, I
need no reason.Next day I decided to
climb a mountain without realising that I’m really going to climb a big old
fucking mountain.It seems like some
allegorical story as I begin by walking past people who seem to be from a
congregation—it is Sunday after all.The
first group include a kindly looking pair of women, one older one younger, who
approach me gleefully with pamphlets about Christ reading ‘Who Really Rules the
World?’ and they even have them in English so I kindly take one in each
language, planning to use them to further my Spanish.Next two young gentlemen, very well-groomed,
who I thought were of the same congregation but apparently their pamphlet is
different and I see that old familiar word ‘Jehova’ on one of them, and the
more confident of the two points to the pamphlets I have shown him from the
ladies and lo and behold he speaks a word of English and says ‘Wrong!’ and I
laugh saying, ‘Ahhh diferent, es
diferente!’ before moving along, but not before shaking their hands
politely.Sorry ladies and gentlemen,
but I’m off to climb this mountain to check things out for myself; thank you for
the invitations though.And so up and up
I go not really knowing what I’m doing and in skate shoes, sliding all over
this beasty mountain; but it’s a friendly mountain, I can tell, it seems to
speak to me in ways that are actually quite simple.Thinking I’m in isolation, about a quarter of
the way up (it’s hard to tell because these mountains overlap and go on forever),
I bump into a horse-riding group.Well, further
up I must go.I say hello and continue
up, up, up and the town looks beautiful from here, I can see a lot: the
entirety of Pisco Elqui, the endless
mountains surrounding it, the snow-peaked ones in the distance, the meandering
valley itself continuing around a bend.It’s like nothing else.And the
silence between the mountains is something I’ve always found other-worldly;
there is nothing like it.Just the sound
of silence.A gentle hum which is no
hum.The frequency of the
mountains.Hovering birds keep me
company just as I think of my loneliness again and they seem to follow me up
and up and then I see a tent, some climbers have camped here; I bump into one,
the another, the latter being the more sociable as he shakes my hand
immediately and asks about where I’m from.Despite my explicit lack of understanding he talks and talks and I nod
and nod and it doesn’t seem to matter because he’s so friendly that the
communication is had anyhow.He wants a
photo of me so I grab his mountaineering stick and smile like a fucking
mountaineer.He’s happy and I ask him
how much further you can go and he babbles on and on and I heard pinto blanco which I think is white point;
this is then confirmed when I see…a white point.We shake hands again and he goes down and I
go up to the white point, slipping and sliding all over this beast of a mountain;
when I get there I fumble about, eat some cookies and eventually come to rest
in some shade, with no one else about, and meditate for a while.It’s utterly peaceful here.Time passes.Nothingness.A few trails of
thought and cloud.Birds.Rock.Vibrations.A low hum and
breathing, breathing.Sigh of relief.Nothing.I make a pile of rocks and place it next to the white point.A man on a horse comes but I don’t try to
speak with him here.He goes.I sit a while more and eventually
descend.One injury on the way down as a
big rock is dislodged by my miscalculations and lands on my heel.Not too bad though.Slide all the way down in my skate shoes and
sit at the bottom, regaining something.Back into town, back into the room.Another night, where my confidence will yet again be pummelled by the
locals when I fail to even buy a beer with clarity.Nonetheless, I know it’s a test of a kind and
there will be rest in knowing it’s fine and that learning as such is not done
in dust it is done in the light of night, far distant times, with many new signs
and without that feeling of being resigned.On time.I also met a nice shaman
lady with whom I had a great conversation, making amends for the other failed
ones; we spoke about plants and healing and interconnection and many things, in
increments; but most importantly about how much can be said without words.So that’s why I have been smiling at everyone.North in a few days. Signal diminishing; over, and, out.

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Both a creative and a more reflective blog are included here. I've been writing since I was a wee lad and now feel the craft is aligned with the mental faculties which are all fuelled by the heart which is fuelled by Brahman or some such brilliant thing. Thank God! Please enjoy. It's as real as I can manage to engineer the damn thing...